Examining correlates of feeding practices among parents of preschoolers

Abstract

Background: Parent feeding practices play a critical role in children’s eating behaviors. Limited research has explored child-level correlates of parent feeding practices. Aim: To identify correlates of feeding practices (responsive and controlling) among parents of preschoolers US. Methods: Participants included parents (n = 273) of preschoolers (3–5 years), recruited from Early Care and Education settings (n = 24) located in a metropolitan city in the US. Analysis included descriptives, correlations, and multiple regression. Results: For responsive feeding practices, positive associations included child's weight with unintentional modeling ( β = .17, 95% CI [0.12, 0.53]), child vegetable consumption with behavioral role modeling ( β = 0.22, 95% CI [0.17, 0.44]), and parent monitoring with verbal modeling ( β = 0.21, 95% CI [0.12, 0.34]). For controlling feeding practices, parent restriction was positively associated with child weight concern ( β = 0.22, 95% CI [0.13, 0.39]) and parent monitoring ( β = 0.13, 95% CI [0.01, 0.19]), whereas child vegetable consumption was negatively associated ( β = −0.16, 95% CI [−0.27, −0.05]). Pressure to eat was negatively associated with child weight concern ( β = −0.18, 95% CI [−0.45, −0.09]), child fruit consumption ( β = −0.12, 95% CI [−0.37, −0.01]), household income ( β = −0.13, 95% CI [−0.30, −0.02]), and parent weight ( β = −0.14, 95% CI [−0.60, −0.05]), Conclusions: Findings highlight the importance of child characteristics when examining correlates of parent feeding practices, demonstrating bidirectional interactions between parent feeding practices and children’s eating behaviors. Considering child-level correlates may improve the implementation of responsive feeding practices and reduce controlling feeding practices.

The Relationships between Caregivers’ Concern about Child Weight and Their Non-Responsive Feeding Practices: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…Characteristics of the included studies are shown in Table 1 . The studies were published between 2001 and 2022, conducted in the US ( n = 12) [ 21 , 24 , 65 , 66 , 67 , 68 , 69 , 70 , 71 , 72 , 73 , 74 ], Australia ( n = 6) [ 26 , 27 , 75 , 76 , 77 , 78 ], Brazil ( n = 4) [ 28 , 30 , 50 , 79 ], Sweden ( n = 4) [ 22 , 80 , 81 , 82 ], China ( n = 2) [ 83 , 84 ], the Netherlands ( n = 1) [ 85 ], Ethiopia ( n = 1) [ 29 ], the UK ( n = 1) [ 86 ], Mexico ( n = 1) [ 87 ], South Korea ( n = 1) [ 88 ], Portugal ( n = 1) [ 23 ], India ( n = 1) [ 25 ], and France ( n = 1) [ 74 ]. The study designs were a cross-sectional study ( n = 32) and a cohort study ( n = 3) [ 23 , 26 , 85 ].…”

“… Effects of concern about child overweight on restrictive feeding (evaluated using β ) [ 21 , 22 , 23 , 26 , 27 , 29 , 74 , 76 , 83 , 84 , 85 ]. …”

“… Pooled β s of the associations between concern about child overweight and restrictive feeding in leave-one-out analysis [ 21 , 22 , 23 , 26 , 27 , 29 , 74 , 76 , 83 , 84 , 85 ]. …”

“…Empirical evidence has also confirmed that caregivers’ concern about child weight plays a key role in whether a caregiver may use non-responsive feeding practices (i.e., coercive control). For instance, a cross-sectional study ( n = 273) in the United States (US) indicated that parental higher restrictive feeding was associated with more concern about their preschool children’s weight [ 21 ]. Similarly, a population-based study ( n = 1284) reported that maternal concern about their four- to seven-year-old children’s weight was positively associated with restrictive feeding and negatively associated with pressure to eat [ 22 ].…”